Israel: settlements and setting accounts

The entry of far-right nationalist leader Avigdor Lieberman and his party Yisra'el beitenu ("Israel our home") into the Israeli government is being hailed as controversial, at best.

Haaretz, which has traditionally a leftist leaning, launches a frontal attack against Labour party leader (and current minister of Defence) Amir Peretz in an editorial entitled What is left of Amir Peretz?, asking what is the point in sitting in the same cabinet with the far right. The editorial contends that Peretz was not able to implement his social agenda, especially as he accepted a chair he was not fit for.

During his half year in power, he betrayed his public mission by not taking over a socioeconomic ministry. Instead, he opted for the Defense Ministry, an area in which he never showed any interest or had any involvement in the past. This is also an area in which his ability to influence proved minute, if not downright negative.
Had he agreed to pass up the honor inherent in this position and stuck to promoting the issues for which he was elected, he could, with his talent and experience, have exerted an influence - as education minister or any economy-related minister - and would not have become a person whose opinions have no impact on the matters for which he is responsible.

Although some Labour MKs (members of parliament) are trying to oppose the cabinet reshuffle, most central committee members support the inclusion of Yisra'el Beitenu, even if that means that the political balance within the cabinet (where Lieberman is bound to serve as deputy prime minister) is way more right-wing on both diplomatic and socioeconomic issues.
Haaretz is particularly concerned by the possible repercussions on the peace process (if any process still exists):

With the inclusion of Lieberman, it is clear that any concessions in the West Bank have been forestalled. Negotiations with the Palestinians are also impossible, even if the Palestinians meet the most stringent preconditions, because a right-wing government has nothing to offer in such negotiations.

The early signals are not encouraging. Peretz has acknowledged the existence of several illegal "outposts" of Jewish settlers in the West Bank and the illegal urban development of many settlers' "new towns", and has announced that he does not intend to evacuate these illegal outposts in the near future.

An editorialist of Haaretz summarizes this story with an article entitled A Lethal Combination:

And indeed, by turning to Lieberman, Olmert is declaring that he does not have the strength to lead the country on his own, while Defense Minister Amir Peretz, for his part, is admitting that he does not have the political and emotional strength to fight back. This is a process that typically occurs among a defeated elite: In order to save itself, it tends to call in the bully for assistance. Olmert and Peretz know they have lost the public's confidence; they know that the recent Lebanon war, which was begun and conducted irresponsibly, was a major strategic failure. But government leaders refuse to recognize their responsibility and are breaking all the records for that familiar public cynicism and corruption.

La banlieue, one year later

What has changed in the suburbs of Paris one year after the October 2005 clashes? Quite little, this blog hosted by Libération seems to suggest.
Le Monde diplomatique dedicates an issue of Manière de voir to a compelling analysis entitled Trente ans d'histoire et de révolte. After an introduction by Ignacio Ramonet, the issue includes articles such as Les raisons d'une colère by Laurent Bonelli, Comment la droite américaine exploitait les émeutes by Serge Halimi, Quartiers populaires et désert politique by Abdellali Hajjat and a whole chapter about urban segregation.
This is an insightful excerpt:

Pourquoi cette explosion ? Aucune explication monocausale ne suffirait à répondre. L'émeute défie à la fois l'’austérité néolibérale, la ségrégation par l'urbanisme, les discriminations à l'’encontre des enfants de la colonisation, le mépris pour la jeunesse et les violences policières, le désert politique de quartiers délaissés par la gauche, etc.

Rien là de défaillances conjoncturelles : cette faillite, en premier lieu en matière de politique de la ville et d'’immigration, tous les gouvernements depuis trente ans — de droite, donc, mais aussi de gauche — en partagent la responsabilité.

It's the war, stupid

Dedicated to all those who were accused of being indirect supporters of terrorism because they were bona fide opposing the war in Iraq.
Now a senior US State Department official is saying:

I think there is great room for strong criticism, because without doubt, there was arrogance and stupidity by the US in Iraq.

Why does it look like déjà vu?

L'odore d'i nostri mesi

L'odore d'i nostri mesi by Canta u populu corsu.
(Lyrics: Ghjàcumu Fusina; Music: Ghjuvan'Pàulu Poletti)

Ottobre sente e castagne
in paese fumicosu
quand'u celu nebbiacosu
fala nant'à le muntagne
pare tutt'avvene chjosu
è finite le cuccagne.

Dicembre sente l'aranciu
chì fiurisce per sse piaghje
ma quandi lu ventu traghje
piglia inguernu lu sbilanciu
tempu d'acque è di nivaghje
affannosu è pocu danciu.

Maghju sente la ghjinestra
chì sbuccia per lu pughjale
inzeppisce fiuminale
verdiceghja la campestra
l'acelli spàrghjenu l'ale
si spalanca la finestra.

Aostu sente a filetta
calpighjata à merendella
a notte s'empie di stelle
di dulcezza benedetta
in core di le zitelle
c’hè un fiore chì l'aspetta.

Chì senteranu li mesi
di la prussima stagione?
Duve pianterà viaghjone
cù le so sperenze appese?
È basteranu e canzone
per guarì tutte l'offese?

Run baby run

Media maxima culpa

That's how a journalist in Baghdad describes the media coverage of Saddam Hussein's trial:

This trial was supposed to be different. The first trial of Saddam Hussein was a circus.

[...]

Next up, though, was the Anfal trial, the genocide campaign against the Kurds in 1988, that saw over 100,000 Kurds killed, many with poison gas, thousands more imprisoned, whole villages wiped off the map.
This would be a serious trial, there was to mass graves, forensic evidence, diagrams, the whole bit. Dujail - whatever - that was a dress rehearsal. Now this would be a proper court case.
The new judge, Abdallah al-Ameri, a Shiite, presided over a very different court. With Barzan gone, everyone was a bit quieter. The new defendants didn’t mouth off as much and Saddam - mostly - kept a low profile. Everyone was polite.
Among the journalists it was a welcome change, though it meant we had to pay more attention to the witnesses for our story and less to the antics of the defendants.
At the end of the every session, though, the judge would usually give Saddam or one of the other defendants a chance to talk - and Saddam would make some pronouncement like if he was still in charge the country, it wouldn’t be such a mess.
So then the grumblings started, from the prosecutors of all people, one even burst out in court that the judge was being too sympathetic to the defendant.
Bit shocking really, I mean not telling someone to shut up and sit down all the time isn’t being sympathetic. Besides, maybe being allowed to mouth off every now and then kept the defendants a little more passive.
They’re going to hang them anyway.
So the next session, the angry prosecutor was relegated to a back seat and that was that.

Except for one little off hand comment that very few people heard.
One of the witnesses described how he sent to a petition to Saddam to find out what had happened to his family. When it came to his turn to question the witness (defendants get to question the witness, it’s bizarre), Saddam said, if I was such a dictator, why were you allowed to appeal to me?
It was a pointless question, and enraged the witness, so the judge decided to calm things down, and said (dismissively) to Saddam “no, you weren’t a dictator, sometimes it’s just the people around one that make one seem to be a dictator.” Perhaps sarcastic? Whatever it was, it was offhand.

Everyone had it in their notes, but only AP passed it on to their desker and then that became the top of the story.
Just to back up a bit, the way the wires cover the trial - since we have to be filing information throughout - is that we take notes and then periodically send them from the press room to our editors (via Yahoo Messenger, as it turns out). Back at the office, there is a desker who receives the quotes and the description and then writes the actual story.

I’ve done both ends and the simple formula is, find the quote, and the fact or two that will make an attractive interesting story. Basically you need two or three quotes from the unhappy witness (my family was gassed, I saw the dead bodies, and then they beat us some more, whatever) and the Saddam quote. There is always one good quote from him every trial and it usually leads the story, unless there is a something particularly awful described in court like a rape or a child dying.
Those who don’t follow this callous (was that a whiff of evil?) formula, will find the next day that the newspapers have chosen the competition’s articles get chosen.

So the word came down the line, “AP’s leading with a dictator quote, do you have it?” So the other wires, went back through their notes (and perhaps maybe, in exasperation, asked the AP guy) and dutifully delivered up the requisite quote.

And where the wires go, the rest of the media will follow. It doesn’t matter what the other TV, newspaper reporters saw or heard, their editors will be sitting there looking at the wire copy that came out during the trial, saying “do you have the dictator quote?”

And of course the Iraqi media, follows the wires as well.
So that was the story the next day, not about the Kurds who suffered, or how well run the trial was, but that the judge thought Saddam wasn’t really a dictator.
For two days the government went out of their way to say the judiciary was independent and they would respect that.
And then on the third day they fired him.

The funniest part was the American advisors to the court, a rather righteous bunch of characters, who’s main role, as far as we can tell, is to convince the media that the trial isn’t really a travesty of justice. It’s an Iraqi process.
So the night the judge is fired we called them up and they swore up and down that the old judge would be there the next day. And the next day he wasn’t and they were spinning it along explaining how it was all within Iraqi laws.
“To say that removing a single judge out of a panel of five besmirches the whole process is a bit premature,” said an advisor to us angrily. Right. When the lead judge gets fired by the government for the second trial in a row, that’s nothing to worry about.
Now don’t get me wrong. I don’t like Saddam, or the toads and psychopaths he surrounded himself with. But there are principles here somewhere. There is an ideal of due process.

[...]

Anyway, what do I care, all that matters is the quote.
So the new judge came in, and on his first day he ejected Saddam, the defense lawyers walked out and at one point, the judge even threw out all of the defendants and then went on to hear the rest of the witnesses in an front of an empty dock.